Guest Project — Make DIY Painted Mason Jars!!

March 16, 2011

Hey there! I’m Celeste: wife, mother of three {a 7 year old son and 3 year old identical twin daughters} anda DIY addict.

I am so thrilled to be posting on Tatertots and Jello today! I just love Jen’s blog {it’s one of the first blogs I ever read} and all her fantastic ideas. She’s such an inspiration! After getting addicted to reading blogs, I decided to start my own blog to chronicle our adventures in updating our 1950’s ranch home we bought 2 years ago. We’ve redone the master bathroom, the kitchen {and built an island}, wood floors, board & batten, painted every room {some twice three times}, painted numerous pieces of furniture and tons of smaller projects. It’s all over on my ‘lil blog My Greenbrae Cottage.

As much as I love the big projects, today I’m going to share an easy project with you… painting mason jars!{both with glass paint and chalkboard paint}

I love all the mason jars I’m seeing everywhere in catalogs and blogland. I especially adore the old vintage blue jars I’ve seen used for candles or flowers or anything for that matter. Instead of searching thrift stores {not my children’s favorite pastime……..yet} I decided to make my own. And it turned out to be super easy!

First I did a Freecycle post looking for free mason jars {do you freecycle? it’s like craigslist but all items are free} I ended up with several dozen! Most of them are just spaghetti sauce jars, but when spruced up, they can fool you into thinking they are from an old vintage kitchen.

I picked up this glass paint from Michael’s….Vitrea 160, in turquoise. I also grabbed some thinner from the Vitrea 160 collection.

I gathered my materials: clean mason jars, paint brush {which I decided later was not the best way to apply the paint}, bowls to mix paint.

First I thought I’d try diluting the paint with regular ‘ol paint thinner. Made sense to me at first…

but you’ll see on the right {above} the turquoise just beaded up when mixed with regular paint thinner. So then I mixed it with the Vitrea thinner and it worked much better {tray on the left}. I started with about a 50/50 solution of paint to thinner and later realized that I only need a TINY amount of the turquoise to achieve the faint blue color I was hoping for.

I started off by brushing the paint on. I used a large brush, hoping to have as few brush strokes as possible.

Both of the jars above were done with a paint brush. The first was a 50/50 ratio or paint to thinner. The second was about 30/70 paint to thinner. {Noticed I used the least attractive of my jars: labeled pumpkin soup, for my guinea pigs!}

Then I switched to a rag for the paint application:

I liked the rag MUCH better. I got a smoother finish and less of that brush stroke look. Also I thinned the paint much more by this point. I was using probably 20% paint and 80% thinner.

Above are the next two jars that were done with the rag instead of a brush and with a ratio of around 20/80 paint to thinner.

Here’s all 4 jars lined up for you to compare. The far left is 50/50 paint to thinner and brushed on. Next is 30/70 paint to thinner and also brushed on. The last two on the right are both 20/80 paint to thinner and applied with a rag.

You’ll notice you can still kinda see some strokes of paint {even with the rag} and also places where the paint is thicker than other places…but when you bake the color on and fill them with water and flowers, that all fades.

Once I had my technique mastered, I did a few more.

Ok, so next step is to bake the jars in the oven. This step locks the color in, makes them dishwasher safe and gets rid of that tacky/sticky feeling they have. First let them dry for 24 hours. Then bake the jars in a 325o oven for 40 minutes.

And then I thought I’d accessorize them just a tad by adding some wire around the neck and as a handle. I bought this steel wire from Home Depot. It bends pretty easily, but the next thinner gauge would have worked well too.

I just wrapped it around the jar and cut. I crimped down the ends with my wire cutters.

Then I eye-balled how long I wanted the handle, added a bit more for twisting it on and cut.

And there you go! “Vintage” blue mason jars!

I just love how the color came out. So faint and refreshing……just beach-y!

I want to share one other way I’ve painted mason jars and that’s withchalkboard paint. I just love chalkboard paint and am so excited when I discover another way to use it. I wanted to create a place to write my kids’ names on these jars. So I taped off an area with blue painter’s tape. I just eye-balled it.

Then I painted the small area with chalkboard paint.

I love this chalkboard paint from Rust-oleum! Did you know it comes in a rainbow of colors? But the scariest most exciting thing is that it also comes in a tint-able white! Oh, help me! I’d be at the paint counter for days trying to get just the right color. So for now I’m sticking with black!

One coat Two coats

Three coats Four coats

After 5 coats I peeled back the tape and Viola! A cute spot to label your jars.

Comments

I love painted mason jars and I plan on doing this for my beach wedding reception center pieces. I also plan on giving all guests a mason jar mug with a handle to get drinks from the bar, but I want to paint a charcoal stripe on them so people can write their names on them. BUT, how can I make the charcoal permanent so it won’t easily come off?? Please help if you have any ideas 🙂

Hi Celeste,
I love your tutorial on how to paint mason jars. I like to collect jars and use them for different things around the house. I don’t have mason jars, but I have jam, salsa, sauce, and pickle jars, and I would love to paint them. However, I’m afraid that they will break in the oven, should I be worried?

Maybe you already know, but I noticed the jar with the pumpkin soup writing on it and wanted to let you know that nail polish remover will take permanent marker off of any non porous surface. Love your jars!

This is exactly what I’m looking for!!! Thank You soo much for giving colors and step by step instructions! I will be doing these for my up coming wedding in June! found post yesterday, got paint thinner and paint brush, and your right paint brush leaves stripes! Vietra didn’t have the turquoise color at my local Michael’s only royal blue. So I got Delta Air Dry Perm Enamel in Mediterranean. Did my paint then thinner and couldn’t see any color so just added more blue, and it’s perfect!! Now I just have to get a rag, because paper towel (thought it would work) & paint brush does not work! Also I checked my local area for free cycle and no one is involved, where do you think I could get more mason jars for practice?

Jen, I absolutely love those mason jars. I used to have some real vintage ones but the dope heads stole them, My house was broken into and someone stole all my jars. But no worries now, I can just make some. Thank You for that great tutorial.

Just another hint if you mix mod podge and food coloring and paint a Mason jar it will tent the color of the glass they now make outdoor mod podge that is safe to leave out doors the more food coloring that you add the darker the glass will be, it works I have tried it several time.

would you believe I was messing around with this very paint today?!?! Same shade and everything! I did NOT get the thinner, but I am going to go back and get. I had trouble w both a brush and a sponge (I saw both recommended for this paint) and ended up using my finger. Going try your method next.

WOW!!!!! Is all I can say! Thank you EVERYONE for such fabulous comments about my blue mason jars…and thanks a gazillion to Jen for featuring me. All these comments have made my WEEK! You guys are all so sweet. Hugs, Celeste

Very cute and crafty idea on the mason jars! I really love the ones w/ the chalkboard paint. I need some of those for my new pantry!! I'm feeling a project coming on…as soon as I get the rest of the furniture moved over! 🙂

Oh my, I love these! I own 3 blue mason jars, and they are cherished – but expensive! What a great idea!

Don't count those pumpkin soup jars out just yet … a little rubbing alcohol will take permanent marker off your jars. I label my jars each year when I do my canning, and it wipes off with rubbing alcohol.

I love the blue Mason jars! I always see these in thrift stores or antique shops – usually around $5 – $10 each, so this is such a great idea, I will be saving my spaghetti jars from now on! This would also be a good idea for baby food jars – maybe as little flower vases?!

[…] It’s also worth noting that there’s no reason to leave your jars plain, they can be colored, tinted blue, decoupaged with paper, decorated with fabric and ribbon, painted with lace, painted with matte […]

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